On Visa pour l’image Perpignan 2011 programme

Special blog update to go through the details of this year’s Visa pour l’Image programme…

You can read Olivier Laurent’s interview with festival director Jean-Francois Leroy on British Journal of Photography here. The man does give great quotes…The below is him on photographers sending work from Tahrir Square…

“”I’ve never received that many CDs about one particular event. I know that square by heart now. I could draw you a plan from memory. I’ve seen it all: Tahrir during the day, Tahrir at night, Tahrir and the dogs, Tahrir in the morning, Tahrir in the evening. So what? What’s the point? What’s the story?”” – Jean-Francois Leroy, in an interview with BJP, 10 May 2011.

Jean-Francois Leroy seen during one of the Visa pour L’image 2010 evening screenings at Campo Santo.

I tried to find links to projects that were chosen for the prestigious Visa Pour l’image exhibitions. I put links to those photographers personal sites, whose projects I couldn’t find.

It would seem having had your feature published in the National Geographic Magazine gives you a better change of getting in the Perpignan roster of exhibitions… Of the 16 photographers who’s work is going to be exhibited according to the currently updated info, four (Bendiksen, Chien-Chi Chang, Schwarz, and Skerry) had their work originally published in NGM. 1/4…

Quotes in this post are from the Visa pour l’image 2011 programme.

Definitely hoping to make my way to South of France again to attend this year’s festival!

Exhibitions

Jonas Bendiksen will exhibit his Bangladesh work, originally published in National Geographic Magazine this month, and showcased and praised here on Photojournalism Links several times…

Jonas Bendiksen (Magnum Photos): Bangladesh: On the Frontline of Climate Change “Flat as a frying pan and for the most part only five meters above sea level, Bangladesh is among the nations most vulnerable to climate change. With the added challenges of poverty and one of the highest population densities in the world, it would be easy to think the fight against nature has already been lost. But the people of Bangladesh are fighting back with resilience and creativity. In this story Jonas Bendiksen looks at the effects of climate change on their environment as the Bangladeshis push back against the rising tides.”

2010 Canon Female Photojournalist Award winner Martina Bacigalupo will show her work ‘My Name is Filda Adoch’ : “The war between the Ugandan Army and the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) has been waged for more than twenty years. It has been described as the world’s worst forgotten humanitarian crisis and is now before the International Criminal Court for LRA massacres of civilians. My name is Filda Adoch reports on the everyday life of a woman in the Gulu district, and shows the suffering the people of North Uganda. It is also the story of silent and extraordinary resistance.”

Jocelyn Bain Hogg (VII Network): The Family : “This three year journey in pictures came about in the wake of a project shot in 2008 documenting the disturbing gun and knife crime issues around Britain’s youth. Given my experience with the criminal underworld, photographed years earlier in The Firm, I decided to look once more at the people who were supplying weapons and drugs to UK housing estates. Joe Pyle senior and the Kray twins, the old-school Godfathers of British crime, have died since The Firm was completed in 2001. In 2008 I found a fractured society of British criminals with little or no organization and leadership, competing, in vain, with international rivals. Russians, Albanians, Kosovans and Turks now rule the UK underworld, but the indigenous villains still wear their heritage on their sleeves.”

Valerio Bispuri Encerrados: Travels to South American Jails “A ten-year trip visiting 74 prisons for men and women in every South American country turned out to be a portrait of the Continent, describing troubles, violence and massive overcrowding, as well as lifestyle, habits and the mood of the inmates. The story offers an in-depth view of the mind and soul of prisoners.”

Didn’t manage to find a link Chien-Chi Chang’s Burma work anywhere…The link is just to his Magnum portfolio…

Chien-Chi Chang (Magnum Photos for National Geographic): Burma: Inside the Land of Shadows “Over the past half century, Burma has gone from being the richest to the poorest country in Southeast Asia, and at the same time has become one of the most isolated nations in the world. Today its military rulers are courting tourists and foreign investors who are shown only the handsome temples and scenic attractions in this most Buddhist of countries. Yet behind the cultural façade stands the repressive regime that held Nobel laureate leader Aung San Suu Kyi under house arrest for 15 years. When Chien- Chi Chang posed as a tourist to take these pictures, he never knew who was watching or listening. Big Brother has many little brothers.”

Fernando Moleres (Panos / laif): Juveniles behind Bars in Africa “Thousands of children in Africa have been abandoned and are living in prison, with adults, in conditions so extreme that their survival is at stake. Overcrowding, violence, sexual harassment, promiscuity, malnutrition, poor hygiene, infectious diseases, and lack of medical care are all common. Most African countries have ratified the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (1990) which has strict regulations on the detention of juveniles.”

Peter Dench: England Uncensored – A Decade of Photographing the English “England has never exactly been glamorous. Many of the English still insist on embarrassing themselves, wearing laughable clothing, eating terrible food and behaving inappropriately. England Uncensored is a laugh-out-loud romp through this often badly behaved nation, a comprehensive portrait of the first decade of 21st century England. It is not an idealized brochure of a green and pleasant land, but the truth, warts and all.”

Lu Nan was a completely new name to me… Difficult to find info on him…Below links to Fotofest2008…

Lu Nan: Forgotten People – The State of Chinese Psychiatric Wards “The exhibition shows the situation of the mentally ill in China, in hospital, at home, and homeless. In 1989 and 1990, Lu Nan traveled through ten provinces and had contact with 14,000 mental patients in 38 hospitals. He visited the homes of more than 100 mentally ill persons and others who were homeless. A truly outstanding report.”

[update 11 May 2011: Katharina Hesse sent me a message that Lu-Nan’s (who is apparantly also known as Mao) work can be found on Magnum Photos’ archive…I didn’t know Magnum had any work by non-members in their archive….but check it out, it’s true… some of Lu-Nan’s work really can be found there. ]

Shaul Schwarz on the other hand, is very familiar to most of us I’m sure… I love this work..

Shaul Schwarz (Reportage by Getty Images): Narco Culture “Let’s face it, the heroes these days are not the lawyers or the politicians, the heroes are the guys flashing the money,” says Narco music promoter Joel Vasquez outside a Narco-Corrido club in Los Angeles. “The market is bigger than ever. I think we can be the next Hip-Hop.” While death statistics have been documented ad nauseam, far less has been said about the broader social reality created by the drug trade and affecting the lives of millions of Latin-Americans. For many here, narco traffickers provide the only models of fame and success. Greed, drugs and violence have now created a new culture – a Narco Culture.”

I went to Riccardo Venturi’s PhotoShelter, but it looked like it hadn’t been updated in ages..I couldn’t find his Haiti work, not even even the the below World Press Photo winning frame … Not much better luck on his agency Contrasto’s site..the below links to WPP…

Riccardo Venturi (Contrasto / Réa) Haiti – the Aftermath “January 12, 2010, 4:53 p.m. A catastrophic earthquake hit the Caribbean State of Haiti. The epicenter was just 25 km from the capital, Port-au-Prince. Riccardo Venturi documented everything he could: the people, the devastation and the drama of the situation. Six months later, he returned to Haiti. Port- au-Prince had been transformed into a vast emergency-tent city. In November, Venturi made a third trip to Haiti. The cholera epidemic was the final blow in the aftermath of the earthquake. The World Health Organization reported in March 2011 that 252,640 people were infected and that 4,672 had died of cholera.”

Brian Skerry’s work stands out in the exhibition selection for being nature photography…

Brian Skerry: Ocean Soul “Ocean Soul is a love story. It is a story of discovery. It is a story of hope. With Ocean Soul, award-winning photographer Brian Skerry shows the ocean as a place of beauty and mystery, a place in trouble, and ultimately, a place of hope that will rebound with proper attention and care. Ocean Soul features an incredible range of marine life, from giant whales, sharks and seals to tiny fish, and habitats from tropical coral reefs to polar ice.”

Alvaro Ybarra Zavala had his work screened last year…this year he’s moved up the Visa ladder to have an exhibition…

Alvaro Ybarra Zavala (Reportage by Getty Images): Colombia, in Eternal Sorrow. Some of Ybarra Zavala’s Columbia work on his website here and here “After more than 40 years of civil war, Colombia is a divided country. Decades of violence have put an end to far too many lives in this extraordinary country. The sequence of events in the war is now dictated by strategic and economic interests, far removed from the ideological values that led to the conflict. Today’s talk of left-wing or right-wing armed groups is misleading. Drug trafficking, palm oil, water and now the market for offsetting CO2 emissions are all factors driving the conflict. The systematic violation of human rights has become part of the general way of life. The number of internally displaced persons is the highest in the world: more than three million. But officially there is no war in Colombia.”

Not yet included in the programme, but also happening, according to BJP’s Olivier, Days of Japan will organise an exhibition of Japan Earthquake coverage, and….this is exciting… Yuri Kozyrev will exhibit his much admired work shot in several different countries during this year’s Arab Spring…and while Jean-Francois Leroy mentioned in Olivier’s interiew that nearly all Tahrir Square work is going to be ignored at the festival, I wouldn’t be too surprised – in fact I’d be disappointed! – if they didn’t show some of Kozyrev’s Egypt work , along with his Yemen, Bahrain, and the stunning Libya photographs.

“In 2010, Visa pour l’Image-Perpignan launched a new initiative. Transmission pour l’image is designed to establish contact between people and ideas, but most importantly for transmission from one generation to the next. Professionals with established careers will provide guidance, sharing and passing on the values they believe in, explaining how they put them into practice. Visa pour l’Image is making an offer to fifty young photojournalists and professionals embarking on a career in the field of photography for them to take part in discussions and learning over 3 days, from Monday, August 29, to Wednesday, August 31, with guidance from photoreporters and picture editors.”

Jérôme Delay will be in charge of the Transmission pour l’image workshops….

Jérôme Delay : “Jérôme is the chief photographer/Africa for Associated Press, based in Johannesburg, and has been covering international news for thirty years.”

His guests for Transmission pour l’image in 2011 are….

Chris Morris : “Chris barely needs to be introduced. We remember, for example, his coverage of the Balkans and his work on the US elections. He is one of the founding partners of the agency VII.”

Jon Jones : “Picture Editor of the Sunday Times Magazine, who established his reputation reporting in war zones and who has also made documentaries for the BBC.”

Joao Silva : “Joao Silva, who was seriously injured in Afghanistan in October 2010, was a member of the famous Bang-Bang Club and has covered many wars and conflicts over the past twenty years. He is a staff photographer with the New York Times.”

Mort Rosenblum : “Former Editor-in-Chief of the International Herald Tribune and AP correspondent in a number of countries. His latest book, Little Bunch of Madmen: Elements of Global Reporting, shows his expertise in professional photography.”

Samuel Bollendorff : “Samuel Bollendorff is a founding partner of the Oeil Public collective and was one of the first photographers to show a genuine interest in web documentaries. His productions such as Journey to the End of Coal, Obesity and, most recently, A l’abri de rien (on housing problems and the homeless) are cited as references”